Rollercoaster
by ZombieJazz
Summary: Elliot's departure from SVU has big implications for Olivia as she tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her still new marriage and her career. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members and is still dealing with a sick child. Will change make them stronger or are they just in for quite the ride? Story 6 of series.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

Will poked his head out off the kitchen and gazed down the hall at her as soon as she got in the door.

"Hey babe," he called. "You just made it in time for dinner."

In a way she was almost hoping she would've missed dinner. She wasn't sure how she was going to make it through sitting at the table with her husband and son and pretending everything was OK. But she sure wasn't going to start talking about it - not until at least Noah was in bed. She wasn't even sure she wanted to think about it.

She was thinking about it, though. She couldn't stop thinking about it.

Elliot had handed in his papers. Elliot had retired. Elliot wasn't coming back. Elliot had abandoned her. Elliot had thrown their entire partnership away – their friendship – and he hadn't even given her the courtesy to give her a heads up. He wouldn't return any of her calls. He wouldn't return her emails. He wouldn't return her texts even. It was like everything they had, everything they'd been through, everything they'd done for each other – it just didn't count. She clearly didn't have any right to having opinions, say or even thoughts on the matter – not from his perspective. That's the message she was getting.

The whole thing just stung so badly. It had been a long and drawn out three months of wondering what the hell was going on, of hoping that he'd eventually get over it, maybe get some counseling - and he'd come back and they'd get back to work. But that wasn't happening. It was official now. He was gone.

She'd tried to hide her tears at work. She gave herself five minutes to go and breakdown privately. The weight of his decision, and the reality that the void that she'd felt for the past three months was now going to stay, hit her to the point it knocked the air from her lungs.

Elliot Stabler had been a rock in her life. The longest relationship she'd ever had with a man – even if it was technically professional and platonic; even if it had been confusing for her more than once with their connection and friendship stirring emotions so deeply in her. But no matter how she cut it, he'd been one of the only stable things in her adult life. He'd been there for guidance and friendship and support and advice – at work and in her personal life. He was her partner, her friend, a mentor, an older brother, a good man. He had played so many roles in her life. He'd helped her through so much. He knew more about her than she even wanted to admit. He knew things she wished he didn't know. He knew everything.

He'd listened to her when she talked about her mother and the rape and her father. He'd had her back when she tracked down her brother. He'd offered support after her assault – even though she didn't want him to even know. He'd offered support when she felt her biological clock ticking. He'd covered her ass more than once in more than one way. He'd stood up for her. He'd told her off when she needed it. He critiqued her boyfriends – usually harshly. He smiled when she was happy. He had her back when they were in the field – and in life, in general. He worried about her – sometimes in an overbearing and overprotective way that drove her insane but at the same time, she wasn't sure how'd she now function without having it there.

He'd been there when she was pregnant with Noah. He'd been there for her son's birth. He'd helped her while she was a single mother. He gave her permission to be in a relationship with Will and clearly told her to not fuck it up. He helped her see how much she loved Will and how much Will loved her. He'd given her support when Noah got sick. He'd convinced her more than once to stay with special victims. And, now he hadn't let her do the same for him. He'd shut her out – like he always did to the women in his life. He'd shut her out before when he was having problems at home, when he was separating from Kathy, even when he was getting back together with his wife. He'd kept it all as private from her as possible, in a way that she'd had to initiate and brow-beat him to get him to say much of anything. She shouldn't have been surprised he'd shut her out while he made this decision and while he coped with the aftermath of the shooting. But she still hadn't been expecting it. She didn't think it would all happen this way. It hurt.

She'd thought about calling Will after Cragen had told her. She thought about crying to him over the phone as she stood in the interrogation room and screamed out her silent sobs. But talking about any of it with Will had been hard enough. In typical Will form, he'd been understanding and patient. He knew how important Elliot was to her and the many roles he'd played in her life. But no matter how she cut it, Elliot was still the other man. She knew that that would always make Will uncomfortable on some level, even though she'd made clear to Will had Elliot was an assigned partner and he was her chosen life partner. They played very different – but still important roles in her life. Will understood that but she knew he still struggled with it. It wasn't that he didn't trust her. It wasn't that he even seemed suspicious of anything. It was just an insecurity and an inadequacy that she knew he'd likely always have – like he felt he was somehow always living in the shadow of Elliot Stabler, even though that's not the way she saw it at all. What Will saw, though was that Elliot had known her longer and knew more about what she saw and did at work – such an intimidate part of her life but one that she tried to shelter her family from.

Up to that point the conversations her and Will had about Elliot's situation, had been predominantly based on the impact it was having on her at work. Special victims was down a body and also now had a target on its back. It meant that even though she was still on a compassionate care leave contract with Noah being sick, she'd still been putting in a lot of extra time to make sure the slack was picked up. She owed that to everyone in the squad – especially Elliot, though. When they moved outside of that discussion, it had really only been some commentary about the IAB being the IAB and making Elliot's return more difficult. That was something Will understood – he'd watched her have to jump through hoops to keep com-care while Noah finished treatment; he'd seen her stressed about other interviews and interrogations that came up with the bureau that attacked her professionalism and integrity and put her career and pension on the line.

She'd talked to Will about how hoped Elliot was coping OK and how much she wished he'd turn her calls. But they hadn't talked about even the possibility that Elliot wouldn't be coming back. She wasn't really sure she'd even considered it – not until Fin had presented that as a possibility about a week ago.

So rather than call Will, she'd agreed to go out on the 10-34 on Waverly. She thought it would give her more time to process what had just happened and to figure out how she was going to deal with it – and how to go home to her family and try to smile, and how to even talk about it with her infuriatingly understanding husband. She'd hope by being late, she would've missed dinner and that Noah's bedtime routine would've started. That she would've been able to come home and bury herself in that and put off having to look at Will. He'd know something was wrong the moment they made actual eye contact.

She sighed as she slipped off her boots and put her keys away. She took her time securing her weapon and badge out of sight and reach. And she composed herself, taking a deep breath before wandering down the hall and towards the kitchen, coaching herself to put a smile on her face.

She could hear Will chattering at Noah as she got closer. The dining room table was already set – tortilla flatbreads sitting on a plate along side a dish of salsa. It told her all she needed to know – as she got wafts of the food she could hear sizzling from the kitchen.

She rubbed her son's cheek as she entered the room, where he was standing on his tippy-toes trying to reach where he had the cheese-grater set on the counter and manage to shred some cheese.

"Hi Mom," he greeted her between his efforts, his tongue hanging out of his mouth in concentration.

"That'd likely be easier at the table, sweets," she told him, leaning down to give him a kiss on his head and reached around him to move it back into the dining room for him. He followed after her and got up on his knees on one of the chairs and started going at it with better leverage. She watched for a moment and then stepped back into the kitchen.

Will gave her a little smile from where he was at the stove top, pushing a skillet full of chicken and onions and peppers around with a wooden spoon. She returned it and stepped towards him to give a small kiss on the cheek, caressing his other cheek lightly with her hand.

He turned his face and met her eyes as she pulled away. She could see the quizzical look in his eyes. He'd already picked up that she seemed a little off.

"Everything OK?" He asked, concern in his voice and creasing his brow.

"Just work," she said. "Tell you about it later." And she leaned forward again, this time catching his lips with hers, partially because she needed the contact and partially as a way to distract him from pressing forward with more questions.

She darted her tongue out a bit to caress his lips and he responded in kind, opening his mouth to her and allowing her to deepen the kiss. She needed those few minutes with him – and she ran her hands down his arms until she reached his waist. She tugged him to turn away from the stove and he complied again, and she pulled him firmly against her, letting her one hand find the back pocket of his plaid-printed shorts and the other rubbing the small of his back, just above his ass. He seemed content with the arrangement and ran his one hand up to tangle in her hair and angle her head a bit more to even give himself a bit better access to her mouth. She let herself enjoy it and feel the realness of it for a few minutes – to remind herself that she had this other stable, caring, reliable man in her life, who wasn't going anywhere. But then she pulled away a bit and broke it off – resting her forehead against his.

"You taste good," she told him quietly. She could see that got a little smile out of him. "What were you into?"

He rubbed his hands down her arms, squeezing them a bit. "Cherries."

"Mmm," she smiled and gave him a few short, closed-mouth pecks. "That's it. There any left?"

He nodded as she extracted herself from his embrace. "Yeah, in the fridge, but I'm not sure how well they'll go with fajitas."

She gave him another little smile, as she pulled open the door and examined what they had in their usually semi-empty but always health-conscious fridge. "Want me to make up some guac?" she offered.

He glanced at her and gave a smile. "That sounds fantastic."

She nodded and grabbed the ingredients and brought them over to the counter, pulling out a chopping board and a knife from their various locations in the kitchen. She washed the veggies at the sink.

"Are you going to want some tomato diced up for with your meal too?"

"Sure, I hear tomatoes go with everything," he said, and turned around to dance his sparkling grey eyes at her for a moment. "Endless possibilities."

She snorted and shook her head at him. It was a joke, from basically their first two weeks of knowing each other, that just wouldn't die. She was kind of glad it hadn't.

"Do you want lettuce for yours or anything else chopped?" she asked, as she started working away.

He shook his head. "Nah. I'm good."

She heard him click off the gas burner – she could tell that the food had almost been ready when she came in and she was kind of holding up the show now. But she liked getting some good oils and fats into her son – and she'd just prefer having some guac on her couple fajitas anyways.

He came over and leaned against the counter near her watching.

"You want me to help with anything?"

She shrugged. "You can chop the onion, if you want."

He nodded and grabbed another knife. He started to work next to her but still kept glancing at her sideways.

"I saw that signore futuro presidente only got caught on unlawful imprisonment."

She allowed him a small smile for his efforts at Italian but just nodded.

"Will he get much time for that?"

"Maybe a year – after the appeals game, if he gets time at all."

Will watched her again. "How'd your victim take it?"

"Hard."

"How are you taking it?"

Sometimes she wished Will didn't listen when she talked as much as he did – and that he didn't know her as well as he did.

"I'm OK, Will," she assured him.

He shook his head. "No, you aren't. Something's up."

She snorted at him. "Something is always up. That's just my job."

He scraped the diced onion into the bowl where she had mashed up the avocado – and looked at her again.

"Mmm. I don't get guacamole and mini make-out session when it was just a bad case or a crappy verdict. Usually I get the don't-touch-me body language."

She sighed and cut the lime in half, before squeezing it into the bowl with the homemade guac. She glanced at him as she did it.

"Elliot handed in his papers today," she said quietly, focusing on what she was doing instead of looking at him.

Silence hung in the air for a long time, to the point she had to glance at him to try to gauge what he was thinking. He looked confused and almost dazed about it. He shook his head at her as her eyes met his.

"What do you mean he handed in his papers? You saw him? He told you this – that he's leaving?"

"My captain told me. I didn't see him. It's final. He's retired from the Force. He's not coming back."

Will still seemed confused and kept opening his mouth like he was going to say something but apparently couldn't find words and closed it each time.

"Are you OK, Liv?" He finally managed to get out.

She allowed a thin smile at him at least being able to ask that and appreciating that he hadn't tried to say something else. But she shook her head, "No, I'm not, Will. Not really." She felt her eyes glassing again as she was forced to bring the hurt she was feeling back to the forefront of her mind.

Will looked down and rubbed at his temple – clearly still at a loss. But then he stepped forward and took the fork and bowl out of her hands, placing them on the counter, and then wrapped his strong arms around her. She let him and melted into his warmth for a moment, feeling his tight chest pressed against her, his arms protectively holding her close to him, and she rested her head on his shoulder though her face was turned towards his neck – and she breathed in his scent. She tried to let it all comfort her. It worked to an extent – yet it didn't. This wasn't something that just a hug could fix. She wasn't sure what could fix it.

Noah came back into the kitchen and held up a small hunk of cheese that was left from the full block he'd been working on grading when she'd first gotten home. She'd been so wrapped up in her own things she hadn't even been monitoring his efforts and her personal-distraction had clearly distracted Will as well.

"This part is too hard to shred," Noah declared.

She snorted against Will's shoulder and shook her head, letting go of him and taking the piece of cheddar, that had been so badly man-handled she wasn't sure any of them would really want to eat it, away from her son.

"I think we've got enough cheese, Noah," she told him. "Thank you for helping."

Noah glowed at the compliment and trotted back out to the table.

She glanced back at Will, who was still contemplating the floor, seemingly lost in thought. She wondered if that's what she looked like today to the rest of the squad room – or worse, if that's what she had looked like for the past three months.

"We can talk about it more later," she told him – and grabbed the bowl of guac and the small plate of diced tomatoes. "Com'on, put that filling in a serving dish. Let's eat."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

**WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS PROBABLY A BORDERLINE M.**

The way Will was just looking at her and smiling, rubbing his fingers across her cheekbone, she couldn't help but smile back. She sometimes hated when he would do that – gaze at her so intently and with this look of almost too much happiness and relaxation in his face, his little grin and his beautiful eyes. It was so intense that sometimes she felt like she had to look away – so she did and nuzzled his shoulder for a moment instead. He just moved his hand to stroking her hair instead as she shifted her position against him.

"I really like what you've been doing with your hair lately," he said at a near whisper, as he worked at running his fingers through it and rearranging it – stopping to just cup and stroke her head.

"Hmm," she mumbled against him. "I'm sure it looks fantastic right now."

She felt him give a little snort of a laugh, his airflow briefly changing and catching in a way she could feel against her cheek where she'd now rested her cheek against his chest.

"Kind of looks like you enjoyed yourself," he admitted. "A little messy."

She smiled against him – and glanced up at him again, catching his eyes. They were a vibrant green right now. They always were during their lovemaking. She could actually watch them change and darken with his lust, enjoyment and arousal as they worked each other's bodies towards their own endgames. In the minute or so before his orgasm, Will's eyes would get so dark and then she could watch them fade again back to their sparkling grey as he settled beside her and their colouring came down and faded with the rest of his body.

She kind of loved watching it. She just loved Will's eyes generally. There were times she thought it would be worth the risks involved in trying to get pregnant again and trying to carry another baby to term – if it meant that their baby might end up with those sparkling and mysterious eyes. Though she suspected even if they ever did manage to conceive her dominant brown-eyed genes would beat out his recessive grey.

She'd noticed early on that Will's eyes changed colour – with his moods and the seasons and sometimes just more generally with the light. His mother had been quick to point out after she started getting to spend some Sunday dinners there that different colours reflected different moods in her son. May had shared it like it was some sort of secret information – but to Olivia it had always been kind of obvious.

Will would get little blue flecks in his irises when he was feeling particularly uplifted or goofy – relaxed and happy. When he was down around his pupil would start to take on brown hues until eventually his whole eye would look almost a hazel, if he was really upset or had been crying. The green in his eyes seemed to come out when he was under-pressure, nervous or anxious. Usually it was just the little flecks like the blue – unless they were making love and then the whole eye would betray the build up in the rest of his body. The green also came out when he was battling a migraine. So she figured some of it had to do with blood flow generally.

She knew he kind of hated that she'd become attuned to the changes in his eyes – and that she could generally read what he was feeling even when he didn't want to talk about it. But she kind of liked it. Will wasn't much for talking about his feelings or emotions – expect for in short outbursts that he usually ended up feeling sorry for or deeply embarrassed by, depending on if he'd raised his voice at her or if he'd let some tears fall. It helped her, though, to know where he was at and what he needed from her. She knew Will felt betrayed by his body because of it – but she was thankfully it happened.

She also had to admit she kind of liked what happened to his eyes while they were having sex more than a little bit. Early in their relationship she'd opted to keep the lights out for more than a few reasons when they were in the bedroom. Some times she still preferred in that way. Will was a watcher. He was constantly examining her during their love-making, watching their joint movements, watching for the changes in her body, watching her breathing, watching her face, meeting her eyes. She found it really disconcerting to be that looked at in moments of such openness and vulnerability. It took her time to become comfortable under his gaze. But as she learned more about his body too and as she had noticed during their foreplay – before the shift was made to the bedroom or before she reached for the bedside lights – that his eyes made a rapid and visual progression in colour, and she started reaching for the lights less. She wanted to watch the full extent of it. She could see and feel what she did to him in other ways. She knew he was attracted to her. She knew he loved her. But to watch his eyes during it all – to see the change in them – there was a different level to it.

One positive about Elliot's notable absence over the past three months had been the changes Olivia had seen in her relationship with Will – especially their sex life. She didn't really want to over-analyze. But she knew part of it was because she'd suddenly felt a gaping hole in her life and had gone scrambling for ways to fill it, and she supposed for re-assurances from Will that he wasn't going anywhere. It had meant that she had initiated more with him. She was the one that would go seeking the touch and the affection – rather than him being the one reaching out to comfort her. She had initiated sex more often too, and Will certainly hadn't been complaining about that. She thought it had helped them, though. They were generally talking more – in a different way than before.

They seemed to have become good at laying and talking after their love-making now. Rather than them both making bathroom and shower trips and then doing some minor cuddling before falling asleep – they'd lay there and give each other time to come down and then talk quietly, sometimes for far too long. Sometimes the talking would lead to more holding and kissing and touching and more sex. Sometimes one of them would fall asleep in the middle of the conversation.

There was something about the vulnerability she felt right now with everything that was going on around her at work – the loss of her friend and partner – that it was in those moments when her and Will had quiet and alone time, when she'd already laid herself out completely vulnerable to him and he hadn't hurt her, it was then that she seemed to feel most open to letting it all out for him. They hadn't directly talked about it – but she sensed he recognized it and had adopted the change in their little routines readily.

She'd never really had a relationship with a man as long as she'd been with Will. She'd always kind of framed sex as just sex in the relationships she had had – beyond some of her early ones as a teen and in her early-20s. Back then she had still painted sex as something special and romantic - the foolishness and naivety of a young girl. Those views had quickly faded and she'd begun to see sex as just a physical need to be fulfilled from time-to-time or an obligation if she thought she wanted to date a man more than a few times.

Even her relationships that had spanned for more than just a handful of dates, she'd never really seen the sex as something that special. Sure, she'd had some good sex. She had even been with a couple men that had given her orgasms that had more than shaken her to her core. But there had also been a lot of bad sex – one-night stands of not knowing each other's wants or needs and just fumbling around to try to get what she wanted and needed out of them. It usually was pretty empty and a lot of time she didn't get what she wanted out of it anyways.

She wasn't sure she had really thought about what would happen with her and Will after sex was added to their relationship. At the time she just wanted to be touched and comforted and he was available. She hadn't really played out the rest of the scenario in her head. She hadn't really considered sex with him would mean a relationship with him – not just friends with benefits. She hadn't considered that a relationship with him meant that he'd be the only man she'd be having sex with for a very long time. She hadn't considered it would eventually mean they'd be married and living together and raising her son together. She thought if she had stopped and thought about all of that – if she hadn't just wanted his touch at that particular moment – she probably wouldn't have made a move. In fact, she probably would've been terrified and self-sabotaged. So, she supposed she was lucky that it all just kind of happened. She didn't have that much of a chance to over-think it.

She would've imagined that sex with the same person would get pretty boring pretty quickly. But even though in the two-and-half-years they'd been sexual partners they'd had their share of ruts of routine, and dry spells induced by exhaustion and interruption frustrations from Noah, and had to work through some of their issues, including her PTSD, it hadn't been boring. There was an intimacy to it that she hadn't ever really experienced. It wasn't just sex with Will. It was the intimacy of their whole relationship that got laid out each time. It was more about caring for the other person – and Will consistently demonstrated that to her inside and outside the bedroom.

Building a sex life with him had been an interesting experience too. Spending that much time with him in the bedroom and in her vulnerable moments, letting him explore her body. She'd become deeply connected to him. They'd both come to know so much about each other's bodies and how they worked – what they needed and what they liked. She knew exactly where to touch Will to get him going – to go from soft to hard and looking at her with those dark, green eyes. He knew the same for her – and could have her core aching for him all too quickly. He knew where to kiss her, where to touch her, her favourite positions for when she wanted different things, he knew when she liked it gently and when she wanted or needed it a bit faster and harder. She knew when he preferred her to be on top but that he always liked to be the one in control as he came. She knew his faces and could read his little sounds. She could feel his changes inside her and against her – his shifting movements – and could remind him to slow down or tell him to let go. And, as they'd gotten more comfortable with each other and as Noah got a bit older and slept through the night more regularly – they were getting more time to play and experiment and learn, shifting outside of just missionary or her on top and trying not to get too stuck in a standardized of a marriage-couple-wholesome-routine.

She wouldn't have imagined that it would all work out based on their early attempts at sex. Will had been so nervous and out of practice. He'd been fine with the making out and the getting undressed. She supposed he wasn't as out of practice there – but after that he'd kind of frozen in almost a terror. Beyond his shyness meaning that she'd basically had to guide him and give him permission to put his penis inside her, he'd hardly moved after he did get in. She'd had to assure him he was fine and she didn't expect miracles out of him. It definitely hadn't been a miracle. A few jerky movements and he was done and laying next to her in embarrassment and a string of apologies. Thankfully he'd somehow managed to work up the courage to try again and he'd slowly gotten back into his grove – and had actively placed efforts into making sure she was taken care of before he started his practice sessions.

But those first several times had been less than awesome for her. She knew he was really trying and he was definitely trying to make sure she didn't just feel like a dispensary but it had been awkward. She couldn't imagine herself having tolerated that with anyone but Will. But it was Will. He was her best friend. He was standing next to her every step of the way with Noah's cancer. He was a fucking widower who had the courage to tell her he'd gone almost a decade without sex – because he didn't want to be one of those guys who just went on a fucking-spree after the death of his wife, because he only wanted to have sex again with someone if it meant something not to just get laid. She really couldn't have just told him he wasn't very good. It would've completely fucked up their relationship more than what just fucking would've fucked up their relationship.

But she was glad she stuck with the awkwardness of that first month or so of pretty bad and short-lived sex – because Will had been a good student and he'd proven to be an extremely attentive and giving lover. She really felt that their bodies just fit together now and worked. She'd had some of the best sex she'd ever had with Will and it really was only getting better most of the time.

"It's the two-time lucky look," she told him and felt him give a silent laugh again.

He kept tangling his fingers in her hair, so she started tracing her own finger on the text of the Serenity Prayer across his ribs. She felt him twitch a couple times – he was so ticklish and his hand eventually came out of her hair and batted her hand away. She looked up at him again and placed a small kiss on his chest instead. But she pulled his arm towards her so she could examine it.

He'd gone and got more tattoos. She'd argued with him a bit about it. She didn't think he needed more. But it really had come down to it being his body and he could do with it as he pleased – to an extent. She liked this one, though, and found herself looking at it on the inside of his forearm a lot. She knew he'd gotten it there for him to look at and remind himself too. "We all have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us," the inscription said. His arm then had an olive branch going under it and a series of Chinese characters falling just under that, printing out: peace, comfort, shelter, family. The characters represented the origins of each of their names, at least according to Will, and he said, what he felt comprised their family.

When he'd told her about his plans for the tat, she'd told him she didn't agree with the tattoo – that she thought it was a little sappy, and she wasn't much for sappy. But the tattoo artist he'd gone to had done a beautiful job and she'd grown to like it, often taking a moment to look at it and run her fingers across the inscription and each of them – forever engraved onto his body.

"I love you," she told him quietly.

His hand moved and cupped her shoulder, holding her more tightly to him. "I love you too," he said.

She rubbed her cheek against his chest. They hadn't much been talking that night. At least not now. They had talked before they came upstairs. But there was really only so much she could say about it. There was really only so much Will could say back. She needed a break from thinking about it, really. But Will must've felt her mind turn that way again.

"Maybe you should just go over to his house," he said softly.

She shook her head against him. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Why not?" Will asked. "He's come over here before – to talk you into or out of things."

She sighed. "There's nothing to talk him out of now, Will. It's done."

He made a sound and she felt him shift his head more heavily onto the pillow behind his head.

"Well, just because he's left the job doesn't mean you can't be friends anymore," he said.

She shrugged. "He wants his space right now. If he wanted to talk to me, or see me, it'd be happening."

Will drew her tighter to him. "It's just stupid. He stood up with us at our wedding. I don't understand why he's being like this."

"It's just Elliot, Will," she sighed, wishing he'd drop it.

"It's not fair he's treating you like this," he said with a touch of anger in his voice.

She sat up a bit and looked at him, running her hand down his cheek. "I don't want to talk about it anymore tonight, Will. There's nothing more to say right now, OK?"

He watched her again – looking into her eyes and then his hand came back up to her face and he nodded, as he guided her back to him and into another kiss. So she settled back against him and tried to shift her attention to his lips and tongue and mouth – to enjoy it. She wouldn't think about Elliot while she was in bed with her husband, she told herself. She was done thinking about it all that night. She could think about it again in the morning – but not right now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

She handed Will more of the dishes from dinner through the serving window to the kitchen.

"I just feel like I'm working at a daycare right now," she told him.

"Daycares are for little kids, Mom," Noah informed her from where he was still picking away at his dinner. He hadn't even touched the meat but at least he seemed almost interested in putting some of the mushrooms and zucchini in his mouth. "You work at a police station, not a daycare."

She gestured at Noah and looked at Will. "Thank you, Noah, exactly my point."

Will sighed and put the dishes in the sink to rinse them off before they'd go in the dishwasher. "It can't be that bad, babe."

"It takes me twice as long to explain to them how to do something as it does to just do it myself," she said. "And they both have these chips on their shoulders. Think they know it all. How they go at some of the interviews." She shook her head in disgust.

"Maybe you need to try to remember what it was like when you started out in special victims," he told her, meeting her eyes and catching the anger there, as she crossed her arms and glared at him. "Babe, com'on. You've been there what? Like 13 … 14 years now? I'm sure you were just as clueless when you walked in the door. I know you were … I've heard stories about some of your gaffes."

She shook her head and crossed her arms tighter.

"You tend to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder there too, Liv. I don't imagine you're a ray of sunshine to work with right now. How …" he glanced at Noah who was back at individually spearing mushrooms halves and deeply contemplating them before putting them in his mouth, "… b-i-t-c-h-y are you being to them."

"Bitchy," Noah said, demonstrating his ever evolving spelling and reading abilities.

"Which one of you gets the swear jar for that?" Liv glared at Will.

Will pulled his wallet out of his pocket and waved a dollar bill in her face before walking over and stuffing it in the jar sitting over on the back windowsill in the kitchen.

"Noah, we don't use that word," she told her son sternly.

"Yeah, especially when talking about Mommy," Will rolled his eyes as he came back to the sink and talking to her through the serving window.

Olivia went and sat back at the table, supervising her son's dinner some more – prepared to do her usual bribes to get him to put some more into his system, and looking at her watch. He needed to not eat for about three hours before taking his chemo pills at bed. With how slowly he was going, bedtime was going to be late that night.

"Maybe it's time for me to move on too," she said. "The captain basically said the same thing to me this morning when I went to talk to him about it."

Will sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose, getting some of the soapy water there and wiping it away. "Liv, you didn't talk to him – you said the same thing as you keep saying now. It's a daycare. That's not a constructive conversation to have with your boss."

She glanced back up at him. "What am I supposed to say?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Your role in there is just different now. You're the veteran now – and you aren't a veteran in a room full of veterans. You're the role model for the new guys. You need to start playing that role."

She shook her head. "I just want to do my job. I don't want to be … whatever to them. Their mother?"

"You're a good mom, Mom," Noah told her again.

She smiled genuinely at that. "Thank you, sweets. I'm glad you think so."

Noah nodded vigorously as though to reaffirm his statement.

"See – he thinks you'll be good being the Den Mother," Will teased.

She rolled her eyes. "That's exactly the role I don't want in there."

"You're still just getting used to all the changes," he told her. "It will get better."

She sighed. "I don't know it will. It's just all the same cases over and over again. It never gets any better – and now they're in there thinking that they can make some sort of difference and that anything we do is going to change anything. I'm just so tired."

She leaned forward and put some salad on Noah's plate, spooning some of the mango vinaigrette Will had mixed up on top of it for him. "Try to get some greens into you too, sweets, if you aren't going to eat your chicken."

"It's too dry," he told her.

She looked at him sternly. "You haven't even tried it, Noah. Daddy did a nice job on it tonight. Put some of the mango salsa on your fork too and have a bite. It's very good."

He shook his head in firm disagreement but glared at her and put a leaf of the mixed greens into his mouth. She rolled her eyes but patted his free hand to show her appreciation and approval of him at least listening about eating the salad.

She glanced toward Will, who was watching them and still sopping away in the sink. She didn't understand why he basically washed the dishes before putting them into the washer. The biggest explanation she'd ever gotten from him was that this was the first time in his life he'd ever actually had a dishwasher and he wasn't convinced it actually cleaned things properly. But she thought it was kind of ridiculous to wash the dishes before washing the dishes. Really, when Will did the "rinse" of the dishes, they might as well have just put them on the drying rack and away into the cupboards – not into the dishwasher.

"What you do does make a difference," he told her sincerely. "There are hundreds – maybe thousands of victims and families out there who would tell you that. There's other cops and lawyers who'd tell you that. You've got the decorations and certificates upstairs hidden away that tell you that."

She sighed again. "They're just pieces of paper. Pieces of metal."

He shook his head. "They represent real lives that you've had an impact on."

She tapped the table and looked at her son. "Maybe it's time for me to hand in my papers too."

She heard Will clatter in the kitchen and looked up to see him coming out to sit at the table, a towel in hand, drying off. He sat across from her and looked at Noah too for a bit before glancing over at her.

"In two years, after you've done your 20, I will be completely on-board with you getting the hell out of there, if that's what you want. It's not an option right now, Liv. We both know that."

She sighed and shrugged. "It won't be then either. I'm just day-dreaming. A quarter-million in hospital bills. I won't ever be able to get insurance for him anywhere else if I move jobs."

"You don't know that," Will said.

She nodded. "Yes, I do. We both do. Pre-existing medical condition. I'm with NYPD until … I don't know when."

Will sighed hard. "I don't like you being in a job you hate."

She shrugged.

"You used to love your job, Liv. You fought to be there."

She traced her finger on the table. "It's just not the same anymore. There used to be some fun aspects to it. We'd laugh. It's just all so serious now. When what we do is so serious –it's hard for all the spaces between to be serious. Munch and Fin are feeling it too. I can see it. John has basically volunteered to be on permanent midnights for the moment – just to escape it."

"At least that means you're getting a break from them," Will tried. "I like that."

She snorted and gave him a small smile.

"You just need to give it time," he told her again. "Things change. It's part of life. You just need to move beyond Elliot leaving and start to accept the job for what it is now – your new role."

She sighed again. "I didn't want a new role. I would've gone and taken the lieutenant exams if I wanted a new role – and a bigger pay cheque."

"Babe, a lot of people work their jobs for the pay cheque, the benefits and the pension. Maybe you just need to start looking at it more that way for now – stop putting the work and yourself and everyone around you up on such a pedestal."

"How much do you get paid Mom?" Noah asked.

She smiled at him again. "No nearly enough, sweetheart."

"More than allowance?"

"A little bit more than allowance," she nodded.

She looked at Will, though. "The concept of doing this job for just the pay cheque is really depressing."

Will shrugged at her. "There are some semesters where I do it just for the pay cheque. But it always gets better."

She sighed and shook her head. "I could try to transfer somewhere else."

"Liv, you aren't one to run away from problems. Give it some time. Don't make any hasty decisions. The new guy – he's not Elliot but he might be alright. Give him a chance."

"They're kids," she said again. "They're both just kids. It makes me feel old. What the … have I been doing there this long?"

He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "You aren't old."

"You're really old," Noah said.

She snorted and rolled her eyes, examining the ceiling before looking at her son. "Noah, you never tell a girl she's old. It makes her feel bad."

"You aren't a girl," her son told her.

She smiled and raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm not, eh? I think we need to have a review of our boys-and-girls talk then."

"You're a mom," he told her instead.

She nodded. "I am and that means … ?"

Noah thought about it for a moment. "You're a girl but you're a mom."

She smiled and reached out and touched his cheek. "And you're a funny little man," she told him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

She could feel herself being looked at and turned around to find Amaro standing behind her stirring his cup of coffee and seemingly staring at her.

"Do you need something?" She said with more than a little annoyance in her voice.

He startled a bit and made eye contact. "Ah, sorry," he sputtered a bit. "I was …", he gestured towards her desk, "…looking at your photo, I guess. Sorry."

She glanced back at her desk to follow his point at where his eyes actually were set. It was her latest framed photo of Noah. Since Elliot had left and the new faces had come into the squad room, she'd cleared her desk of most of her personal items, wanting to maintain her privacy. But she hadn't been able to remove the picture of her smiling son. Sometimes taking a few minutes to look at him and to see his ability to still smile and laugh after everything he'd had to endure – it was what she needed to force herself to get through the day. Still, with Nick's eyes now set on the photo frame, she was regretting her decision to leave it out.

"Is that your son?" Amaro asked, clearly trying to make amends for his stares.

She looked up and away from Noah again, she saw that Rollins was now listening in too, as she turned her eyes back to the young detective. She just gave him a small nod and no verbal response.

"I've got a daughter," he offered. "She's four. Well, she's almost five. I brought in a picture of her too but then I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to have a photo of her out … you know … here …"

She examined him for a moment. "It's a personal choice," she allowed after several seconds and after seriously considering ignoring his attempt at conversation. "You aren't likely to have many perps at your desk ever, if that's what you're worried about." She paused and looked back at her son. "Some times on this job it helps to have reminders around about why you're here."

Nick apparently took her verbally responding to him as an invitation to come closer to her desk and examine the picture from that angle.

"How old is he?" He asked. "Like five too?"

She knew Noah was small. The chemo had stunted his growth and he really hadn't gained much height or weight since he'd started treatment. He'd had some fluctuations in his weight going up and down but overall, he was underweight for a child his age – and his height was significantly overwhelming. But the doctors said they wouldn't be doing much about that until he was out of LTM – then they might give him some growth hormones if he didn't start to spurt on his own after a year or so.

She rubbed his eyebrow, though. She should've just avoided commenting but she was in the midst of it now and she couldn't cut it off without being really rude. Cragen had already talked to her about that – more like told her off. She needed to get her attitude in check and at least try. They didn't need to know her life story but she could at least be a little congenial.

"He's seven," she allowed.

She saw Nick look harder at the picture and was just waiting for him to ask if it was an old photo. She didn't want to have to say that it was a photo from barely a month ago – one that she'd just randomly taken while Noah was galloping around the playground, but one she'd been so taken with that she'd had it printed out and switched it into her work frame.

The way the light had hit Noah's face, he just seemed to be glowing and happy. You wouldn't know it was a stop at the Ancient Playground – one of Noah's favourites – outside the Met while they were on their way up to Mt. Sinai for him to get another one of his lumbar punctures. In that moment her son was a normal little boy full of giggles and sillies, clambering up the sides of one of the pyramid structures and smiling at her in his sense of accomplishment. No more than an hour after it, she was having to calm her son and wipe away his tears before going in for the procedure – one of his least favourite, if any could be called favourite. But there was something about this one that always just set Noah off in cries of fear before they were called in.

She didn't blame him – even thinking about them having to stick the little needle in between his vertebrate made her cringe. Having to help the nurses get Noah into position for it and hold him tight and secure while they cleansed his back and threaded in the fine puncture – it was hard for her. She couldn't watch them do it and had to force herself to keep her eyes on Noah's face and talk softly to him, telling him how brave he was and how still he needed to stay.

It didn't matter how they assured her it wasn't painful – it was just uncomfortable and a short pinch. It sounded awful and the way Noah cried, she knew it was a big deal to him and he always had an aching back the next day. But at least she could curl into the hospital bed with him for the few hours after the procedure that he needed to be monitored and hold him and calm him – her little boy. She'd wipe at his tears and give him kisses and read to him until he'd always cry himself to sleep and she could just lay there and listen to his breathing and pray that all this would be over soon. That Will's family's faith counted for something, that there really was a God and that son her little boy would just be well and she could get on with giving him a normal life – or something like it.

But instead of commenting on her son's age, Amaro had said, "He seems familiar for some reason."

She offered no comment. She wasn't sure why her son would look familiar to him. But she saw the detective looking at her and gears processing. Then she knew that he somehow knew – and hated having the picture of her boy out even more.

Her family had benefited from some of the funding set up through the Detectives Endowment Fund. The money they'd received had helped cover the costs of some of Noah's treatment – paying down some of the bills that weren't covered by the Force's health benefits. Though she had initially felt awkward accepting the funding – as the bills stacked up and her and Will fell deeper and deeper into a financial hole, she had come up with fewer excuses to decline it.

She figured she'd paid the $1.30 a payday into the fund off her detective's salary for years and hadn't ever expected to need to access it. She supposed most people did – but that didn't mean she should feel guilty about actually accessing it. She'd given a donation to the endowment's Christmas campaign each year for police families too. It had taken some convincing from Will – and Elliot and the Captain - but she decided to put in the forms to access some of the monies available through the endowment and she was grateful for every cent her son had received to help their family offset the costs of getting him back to health. She was thankful to have Brothers in Blue who were willing to invest money from their hard-earned pay cheques to help out their extended professional family.

So her family had also been invited to some of the endowment functions – usually the Christmas party. It was annually held just after the Thanksgiving weekend to give the families that received the money a chance to say thank you but also as a staging event for the annual campaign to get members of the force to support their own. The previous Christmas, the three of them had ended up in a crowded group photo of that year's endowment families that had been taken at the event and ended up in the internal newsletter that had been sent out to promote the Christmas donation campaign. She wouldn't have expected anyone to have much noticed her son in the photo or even be able to remember it and pick him out later – but that was the only thing she could think of that would have Nick recognizing her son. And now he was looking at her with that sympathetic gaze of parental recognition and horror at her experience. It was a look that she despised.

It wasn't a secret that her son was ill. But it also wasn't the beginning of their journey anymore, when she knew her family situation had been added to the water-cooler and transit-talk gossip or general commentary. Even though they were still working their way through Noah's treatment – most of the Force had forgotten about it. Fin, John and the Captain, of course, still asked how he was doing. Cragen still accommodated her needs to be away from the desk to care for him – he had to but he really was more than accommodating. But the reality was that Noah's illness wasn't as in the face anymore. Her schedule was generally more predictable – so work could just kind of forget about it, expect for those who knew why she seemed to miss three days every month and why every Thursday she started late. For everyone but her and Will and Noah – it just wasn't a big deal anymore. They didn't fully appreciate that their cancer journey was still continuing – that Noah's treatment was still very really and there were some days that were just as challenging as ever. But the changing faces in the squad room had meant she'd been able to try to make her private life her private life again. She thought she'd been doing an OK job at that and wanted to keep it that way. She glanced at Nick and gave him a firm glare – challenging him to push further into her business and making clear that she'd lash back if he did.

But he just gave her a thin smile and went back to his place and sat down. He opened the top drawer of his desk and fished out a framed picture. He handed it across the gap to her.

"Zara," he said, nodding at it.

She took it and looked at it for a moment. It was a smiling dark haired little girl, dressed in pink and with big dark eyes. She gave him a smile. "She's beautiful," she allowed and handed it back to him.

He gave her a little smile and looked at his daughter again for a second, before handing the photo to Rollins, who was still clearly listening in on their chit-chat.

"She takes after her mom," he said. "Your boy looks like he takes after his mom too."

Nick had already made known that he wasn't shy to offer flattery and sweet-talk to the ladies. So she didn't take his comment as much of anything – if she had, she likely would've snapped at him to send him shuffling back to his place. Instead, she just gazed at Noah's happy eyes in the picture on her desk again. Moments in time and looks can be deceiving. The photo sometimes reminded her of that. Only she knew when the photo had been taken and what her and her son had shared in the hours after. But for that half-hour of play – they'd gotten to be mom and son at the park. She tried to give him as many of those moments as possible.

"What's your kid's name, detective?" Rollins asked her as she handed Nick his photo back and he carefully put it back into his drawer, watching his daughter as he slowly rolled it shut.

She glanced up at Rollins. "Noah," she nodded.

"Geez guys, doing this job with little kids at home," Rollins drawled out and shook her head.

Olivia shrugged and glanced at Amaro. "I won't tell you that it gets easier."


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

"So what's the deal with Benson?" Amaro asked Fin out of nowhere.

The detective glanced at him from the driver's seat of the squad car where they were parked and watching for any movement from their suspect.

"What you mean?" He said.

Amaro shrugged. "Well I heard about her partner – and the shooting."

"It was a good shooting," Fin said defensively. "Stabler was a good cop. Her and Stabler were partners a long time. Twelve years. That's 10 years longer than my marriage."

"She's quick with the smart-ass comments, though. Angry," he interjected.

"You'll be pissy too after you've worked this job as long as she has," Fin said, gripping the steering wheel and gazing more at the window. "She's dealt a lot of scum."

"Yeah, but I'm not one of the bad guys," Nick said.

"You haven't proven that to any of us yet, Rookie," Fin said.

"I'm no rookie."

"You are in our squad. She'll cut you some slack after you've earned it."

Nick made a disgusted snorting sound and looked out his window. He rapped on it with his knuckles and looked back at Fin.

"So she's got a kid, eh?"

Fin glanced at him again. "Yeah, what of it?"

Nick shrugged. "Don't know. Just never pictured Bad Ass Benson with a kid."

"Bad Ass Benson?" Fin said purposeful and looked at him with some shades of disgust and seriousness.

"Over in Warrants, that's what I got told, warned about before getting transferred – that I was getting shackled to Bad Ass Benson with Stabler bailing. She's got a bit of a reputation."

"That reputation better be that she's a damn good cop," Fin told him quickly and angrily.

Nick shrugged again.

"And you'll be damn lucky if the Cap ends up partnering you with her," Fin added with even more seriousness.

"Yeah, I don't think that will go over so well with her," Amaro said in an almost sulky voice.

Fin glared at him. "Well boo-hoo, Rookie. She's a good cop – and you can sure as hell learn a lot from her. So you better start listening up when she says something. She knows what she's talking about."

Silence hung in the car for several minutes but then Nick glanced at him again. "So what's wrong with her kid?"

Fin really glared at him now – taking his eyes off where he was supposed to be watching. "Nothing is wrong with Noah. He's a good kid."

Nick made a face. "Yeah, but he's one of the endowment kids, isn't he?"

"Who told you that?" Fin demanded.

He didn't like people chattering about his colleague and did his best to shot down any gossip that people directed at him. He knew what it was like to be the target of the house chatter. Benson didn't deserve it – especially when it was about her little boy, which he knew she was deeply private about. She even was cautious with what she'd told him.

Fin figured the only one in the squad who had known the full extent of what was going on with Noah had been Elliot – and even then he got the sense that she was holding those cards close to her chest. He knew she had to in a way with all the hoops she'd jumped through to keep her com-care contract going this long. She didn't want too much information floating around or rumours – she didn't want any reasons out there for them to yank those privileges away from her.

The only time he'd gotten a real glimpse at what she was going through was the summer before when they'd worked the chemo-nurse pedo case and he'd seen her have a near breakdown before pulling it together and collecting endless victim statements from all these sick kids and their families. He'd heard her recite some of the details of what her Little Man was going through over and over again as she strived to connect with the families and the kids. He'd seen her sit mentally and emotionally drained at the end of the day at her desk and wondered if they were pushing her too far.

Fin had seen Noah in and out of the precinct during the whole never-ending treatment ordeal. He wasn't touchy-feely with the kid like John was – but he looked at the Little Man. He'd seen his changing complexion depending on where he was in a treatment cycle. Sometimes the kid looked like a fucking corpse he was so pale. He'd seen him look puffy from the steroids and then nearly famished in the weeks following it. He'd seen the kid's hair come and go. He remembered the that the kid had had thick, straight brown hair same as the detective before but now when he did have some hair on his head it was almost blond looking and always looked like a curly, frail and dead mess. That was if he could even see it. The kid nearly always had something covering his head and Liv would quickly cover it for him, if she was switching his hats or tending to what sometimes looked like nasty blisters on the kids scalp. As a parent, he felt bad for Liv but knew she was strong enough to deal with it all.

He'd always made the trip in and paid his respects on the numerous times the poor Little Man ended up stuck in the hospital for a couple days. He'd take the kid a Hot Wheels. He remembered Ken always liking when he brought home the seventy-cent cars and trucks. Liv's kid seemed to eat it up too. He knew she even had some of the growing collection of little cars in her desk drawer for the boy now - for when he breezed in and out of the squad room.

But seeing Liv with her boy in the hospital. It was always a different experience. He knew she appreciated them all coming in – and they all had. He'd want his privacy but want the same if his boy was ever in the hospital. He knew Liv would show up for Ken if something ever came up – even though his kid was a man now. Munch would get his skinny ass in there too. But, he knew, he'd be like Liv – he'd struggle with letting them in on that part of his life. Hell, he'd avoided even telling anyone he had a kid. It wasn't anyone's fucking business but his own. He knew where she was coming from.

He could see what a soldier she was for her kid, though. She was a stoic presence at Little Man's bedside. He'd seen her glare down some of the young residents and nurses too and snap back at them information that made clear she had her boy's charts and tests and entire medical history memorized. That she knew all about the treatments and the medicines and everything else that they were pushing on the kid and her family. Benson didn't let anyone walk all over her and she sure didn't let anyone get anywhere near her kid until they earned it. He wasn't going to let some New Guy start nosing around and pissing her off. If Liv wanted him to know about her boy – he'd know.

Nick shrugged at his demand for an answer on where he'd gotten his information about Liv accessing the endowment funds. That was private – and she fucking deserved every cent she got out of the money. Amaro wasn't going to get to make it sound like she was robbing the bank by taking some cash out of an account she'd long paid into, just like everyone else. That's what the fund was there for and her Little Man sure as hell needed it. The rookie's shrug, though, just prompted Fin to shake his head and go back to watching the windows of the apartment for any movement or lights going off and on, glancing at people coming in and out of the building.

"Bad Ass Benson is Mommy Benson, no one ever told me that," Nick said again.

"Do you have to be so damn chatty? Look out the window. Keep your eyes open," Fin told him.

"I'm looking," Nick spat. "If I have to sit here with you all night, the least you can do is give me some tips on the squad. Com'on man."

"OK – here's a tip. Don't slip up and call her Bad Ass Benson to her face – or you'll be choking on your balls. Call her Mommy Benson to her face and you definitely won't ever be giving that little girl of yours a brother or sister. Got it?"

Nick snorted out a laugh and took a swig out of his energy drink.

"Seriously, though, is her kid sick or something? Seems like she takes a lot of personal calls."

"I seen you on the phone and Skype a lot with your kid and girl too," Fin told him, "and you've been here, what like three weeks? She's earned the call-time with her kid and man."

"Man?"

"What now you crushing on her? Jealous?"

Nick just made another face. "No. I just … Bad Ass Benson is a mom and … married?"

Fin examined him. "You're real observant there, aren't you Rookie?"

"She doesn't have a ring," Nick said.

Fin tapped the ring finger on his right hand.

"Yeah, but that's not a wedding band."

"You think it's smart for a female detective to go in with perps sporting all sorts of indicators about her outside life? I don't think so. She keeps it casual. She's smart about it."

Nick snorted. "Her husband must love that."

"Will's cool. He gets it."

Nick glanced at him. "Her guy's not in the force, though, eh? Someone would've mentioned it then."

"Your sources sound fucked anyways – if you managed to get over here not knowing anything about her other than some whacked nickname."

"More reputation," Nick said. "Bitch. Balls crusher."

Fin glared at him. "Benson ain't either, New Guy."

Nick shrugged. "So what's her guy do?"

Fin glared out the window. "Why don't you ask her?"

"Ah, because I asked her about her picture of her kid on her desk and I thought she was contemplating ripping my jugular out."

"So maybe that's all the answer you need then. She doesn't want to talk to you about it."

Nick rolled his eyes. "OK."

Fin sighed. "Look, Kid, that woman's been through hell and isn't even back yet. So just leave her the fuck alone about her family, OK? Her kid and Will are in and out of the precinct enough. You'll meet them. Don't say shit that makes her feel like she can't have them in there. She's earned that privilege too and she don't need the stress of trying to reorganize her life more just because we've got some new Nosey Nancies in the squad."

Nick sighed. "Yeah. I just thought made us both having kids could be some sort of common ground to maybe make her hate me a little less."

Fin shot him another disgusted look. "What are you 10? She doesn't fucking hate you. She doesn't even fucking know you yet."

"She sure is giving off a whole lot of negative energy that seems to be directed my way," Nick commented.

"Just do your fucking job and she'll be fine with you," Fin spat and went back to glaring out the window. "You can start be sitting here and watching that fucking apartment. I'm going to get coffee."

He opened the door and got up, being sure to slam it forcibly, clearly demonstrating his disgust with the conversation.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

Rollins could see the older detective talking in hushed tones on the phone and squeezing the bridge of her nose as she chatted. She didn't seem that impressed.

"He can't hold it?" She'd said and after a few beats had sighed. "OK. Yeah. No. Come up."

Benson had gone back to typing something on the computer after the conversation had finished. But not more than about five minutes had passed before the little boy from the picture on the woman's desk had come charging into the squad room and made a beeline straight for his mother – clearly familiar with the space.

The kid looked even more like her in person than he did in the photo. But something looked kind of off about him too, that she couldn't quite place. She did think he looked a little small, though, considering she was pretty sure she'd heard the detective tell Amaro that the boy was seven. He looked maybe five – kind of a scrawny runt of a kid, she thought. Little thing was likely going to take walloping in the playground for that.

Rollins had seen Nick look up as the kid had come into the bullpen too and watch as the boy bounded over to Benson. Her body language had changed and softened as the little boy reached her and she'd accepted his hug and kept an arm around him as he talked at her, pushing her chair in a bit of a rotating motion and she let him move her ever so slightly on it, before swinging it back over to bump him just a nudge and he used the momentum to bounce her away from him again.

Rollins had glanced behind her again as she saw Benson's eyes lift away from her boy for a moment and look towards the door and a kind smile spread across her face.

A handsome, fit-looking man was coming in. She hadn't really thought about if Benson had a man in her life. Something about the woman just screamed single mother. Maybe she'd just assumed that a woman couldn't do the job and have a real relationship. She sure as hell hadn't figured out how to do that good and proper – even in Atlanta. In New York City – the hours and what she saw was even worse. Doing it with a little kid at home sounded hard enough to her – juggling the needs of some guy and keeping a relationship going? She couldn't imagine being able to pull that off and she'd only been there a couple months.

But, fuck was the city lonely for a place with more than eight million people in it. Having some companionship didn't sound half bad, even if she didn't know how the hell you could keep it real with the pressures of the job. But the guy was clearly Benson's man. She was clearly pulling it off.

She looked over the guy, taking him in as he walked over to where the detective and the boy were, and sat his ass on the edge of her desk to talk quietly to them for a moment too. Benson's body language had softened even more as the guy got there. The woman was even smiling and almost seemed to laugh at something the guy had said.

Rollins always envisioned other cops with cops for some reason. Even though she knew for a fact that cops weren't exactly the pick of the litter in terms of dating. There were a lot of macho, narcissistic, chauvinistic assholes on the job. She sure knew that from experience. This guy didn't look like a cop, though. Not at all.

He was wearing baggy khaki shorts with a dress shirt that had its sleeves rolled up to above his elbows. But he'd paired the shorts with what looked like Blundstones to her, which even she thought was a strange fashion choice. She could see how muscular the guy's legs looked, though, and also that his one calf was plastered with a tattoo while another took up the entire inner side of his one forearm. She couldn't really tell what either were, though. One kind of looked like Chinese characters while the other might've been some sort of equation. He had a Yankees cap sitting backwards on his head – the same as the woman's kid, and sunglasses were sitting up on top of it. The way the ball cap hugged his head so tightly seemed to highlight some angry-looking scars that crept along his one eye and cheekbone. But the rest of the guy's features looked so relaxed. He almost seemed deceptively young looking and baby-faced. He even had fucking dimples in his cheeks to go with his prominent cheekbones and chin. It looked like he didn't know how to not smile. He definitely wasn't a cop.

She overheard the kid say something about "Nurse Bruise" and then watched as he struggled to pull the UV hoodie he was wearing up his arm, only to have the detective work at pulling the shirt up and over the kid's head instead and then examining the boy's arm. Even from where she was sitting, she could see a prominent looking bruise on the kid's arm after the detective had peeled away a Band-Aid and some cotton-bunting. She figured it sort of looked like the boy had had some blood-work go badly.

She could see Amaro kind of watching out of the corner of his eye too, but resisting the urge to directly look at them. Rollins had a better view of the show, though Nick could likely hear whatever they were saying better from his vantage point. She thought it was a little weird to see Benson clearly as a member of a family – obviously a mother and wife. That totally wasn't the vibe she gave off. She supposed they all put up fronts at work and kind of had too. But it was pretty clear that there was more depth to the woman than she'd thought.

Rollins had come into Manhattan's SVU respecting the woman's work. She knew her cases – she'd studied a lot of them, she'd even used some of them to help shut her own back down in Atlanta. But she'd just kind of assumed that the other detective lived the same life as her on some level. She clearly didn't. The woman had more to her than the job and she hadn't even considered that. She thought Benson was her work – married to the job. That was the vibe she got from her – even after she'd spotted the kid's photo on her desk, she still thought it was a bit of a blip – a coincidence. Maybe it was a sign you could have a kid, be a woman and still pull off the gig? Or maybe that's what Rollins wanted to believe.

"You should've asked for someone else," Rollins heard the detective direct at the guy while still examining her boy's arm.

"He didn't fuss," the man had said back to her.

"She digs," Benson had shot back at him. "This is his good arm – now they won't be able to use it next week."

"It's just a bruise," the guy had said – and Benson had shot him another dirty look.

"Did you even put pressure on it after?"

"No," the boy had answered for him.

"Because Noah knows to do that himself now, right?" The guy had said – and the boy had just shrugged.

"Go get some ice and a paper couple paper towels from the kitchenette," she'd demanded at the guy, who'd made an audible sigh and trudged off in the right direction, also clearly familiar with the squad room and it's surrounding area.

"Does it hurt, sweets?" She'd asked the boy who just shrugged at her again.

"I'm hungry, Mom," the kid had said. "Does Unkie Munchie have pudding?"

Rollins had to look further down at her desk and stifle her mouth to contain a laugh at the kid's reference to the serg. She'd glanced over at Amaro, who clearly had heard it too and was also trying to hide a smile. Even being there just a short time thinking of the serg as Unkie Munchie seemed like a little much.

"You know I don't think Unkie Munchie keeps pudding here just for you," Benson had said to the kid.

But the kid had nodded vigorous. "Yes, he does."

"Does he?"

"And Eli," the kid had clarified. Rollins wasn't sure who Eli was but kind of figured from the name and the cloud that briefly rolled across the detective's face that it was likely her former partner's kid.

So she gave the boy a bit of a sad smile and had agreed, "And Eli," and then jutted her chin off in the direction the man had gone. "Go and help, Daddy. Tell him I said you can have a pudding if Unkie Munchie has some in the fridge."

The boy had brightened at that and quickly gone charging off and she'd started clearing some stuff off her desk until the two boys had come back. The man had handed her an ice cube wrapped in a paper towel and she'd pulled the kid up onto her lap and applied it to his arm. The boy didn't seem to even notice and was instead fumbling around with a pudding, trying to get its lid peeled off. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth as he did it. Benson had almost expertly taken it from him with her free hand, maneuvered the kid's hand to hold the ice in place and then opened it for him, handing him the lid so he could lick at it with an enthusiasm that made it seem like he either hadn't eaten that did or that he didn't get pudding very often. She'd then bent his arm to hold the ice in the crook of his elbow and lifted him off her lap so she could stand up and settled the kid back onto her chair, pushing it closer to her desk, where she'd set down the pudding and spoon for him for when he was done his licking.

"You know we're going out to dinner from here, right?" The guy had commented, nodding at the boy who was clearly overjoyed about his snack.

"You know it's going to be World War Three to get him to eat next week, right?" Benson had rolled her eyes at him. "I need to touch base with the captain before we head out."

She'd grabbed a file out her one drawer and had straightened.

"Ah, Will – Amanda Rollins, Nick Amaro," Benson had finally said at a more normal conversational level in the squad room and made brief eye contact with both of them. "They're our new detectives."

Rollins had seen Will give Benson some sort of look that seemed like a private and well-known commentary between the two of them. She could only imagine what it was all about – but she didn't get the impression it was that Benson had been as excited about meeting her as she'd been getting to introduce herself back on her first day, when the detective had more than just brushed her off.

"My husband, Will McTeague," Benson had added, nodding at the guy, then touched kid on the head, though he hardly seemed to notice. "Noah," she said simply about him.

Rollins gave them a bit of a smile. "Hey," she said. Nick had just nodded in their direction.

"OK. Back in a few minutes," Benson had said, before heading over to Cragen's and going in and closing the door behind her.

Rollins could see Will giving them both a bit of a once over. She was trying to figure out something to say to him – but really couldn't and she wasn't sure he was going to start a conversation either.

"Seems like that pudding must be pretty great," she tried, nodding at the boy.

Will glanced up from watching the kid and looked at her. "Ah, yeah, I guess. We don't do a whole lot of processed food at home. It's a treat."

"The serg's stash just for the kids or the whole class?" She asked.

He shrugged. "I don't really know the rules. Doubt anyone would really notice if you took one, though."

"Maybe you could get away with stealing one on Zara's behalf," she suggested at Amaro but he'd just made a grunting sound, barely looking up from his work.

Will looked at her again. "You're the one that transferred up from the South?" He asked, though there was a certainty in his voice, that only made sense given her accent.

"Atlanta," she agreed to his comment.

He nodded with some kind of recognition. "I was down there for a conference back at the end of June. Liv and Noah came down for a bit of a long weekend – did the tourist thing. Nice city. We had fun."

"Oh yeah," she said, perking up at the guy actually seeming friendly-enough – way friendlier than his wife came off as. "You do the Aquarium? Everybody does the Aquarium."

He'd rubbed at his face and looked at Noah again. "Yeah. We really enjoyed that. Great dolphin show. We liked the Lego Discovery Centre a whole lot too, didn't we there bud?"

The kid had nodded heartily at that. "It is very cool. My Racer went super fast."

Will nodded. "It did, you rocked it, there, sweets."

"It's not a real LegoLand, though," the kid said. She wasn't sure if he was telling her or his dad.

"Nope," Will had agreed. "Just a really cool store, right? But maybe we'll get to LegoLand on Spring Break, if you're super good."

The kid had nodded some more and the man had made eye contact with her again.

"Didn't even know there was a Lego store in Atlanta," she offered.

He shrugged. "I think it's pretty new. Bit of a change from Atlanta to New York," he'd commented.

She nodded. "Yeah but perps are perps no matter where you go."

The guy had snorted and almost shaken his head – like he was overly used to cop talk and didn't much like it.

"What were you in Atlanta for?" She asked.

"Ah, Team Up," he said and then shook his head. "It's this math conference thing – about reforming math curriculum in the country and utilizing online technology in its teaching more. It's kind of what I do."

"Curriculum reform?"

"Teach math. Basically."

"Oh, yeah?" She said. "At what school?"

"NYU," he said.

She examined him more. "You're a math professor?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

She snorted and looked at her desk. She had seen Amaro watching that part of the conversation too. The big reveal on Benson's guy had been kind of anti-climatic, but she hadn't really expected the man to be a university professor. A cop dating an academic? Talk about two different worlds, she thought, and wondered what the hell the two could even talk about or have in common. But she saw that Will was looking at her questioningly.

"Sorry, you just don't look like a math professor," she offered up to him.

She saw Will glanced down at himself. "What do I look like?" He asked with a bit too much seriousness.

She shrugged. "Not a math professor."

Will made a face. "What's a math professor look like?"

"Not you," she told him.

The guy had kind of rolled his eyes and gone back to looking at the kid, who was done his pudding and had placed the melting ice smack in the middle of his mother's desk, creating a puddle on a file folder. Will had looked a little pissed as he picked the ice up and tossed it in the trash under her desk and tried to wipe the water away, flipping the folder open and seeing that the water had already soaked through and started smearing what was inside. She heard him swear under his breath and pick it up and wipe it on the side of his shorts, like that would help and then shoved it off to the side of her desk, out of reach from the kid, who was seemingly happily moving everything imaginable to different locations on the desk.

Will had taken the pens out of the kid's hands. "OK, Noah, I don't think Mom's in the mood for you re-arranging her desk tonight."

"Not re-arranging, fixing," the boy had protested and snagged the pens back.

"Well, I don't think Mom is in the mood for any fixing either. So let's leave her things alone, please."

The kid had made a huffing sound but let his dad take the pens and put them back in the container sitting over by her monitor. He'd instead shifted his attention to opening and closing her desk drawers – and Will had again guided his hands away.

"OK, let's not go through Mommy's drawers either, Noah," he'd said firmly.

"I forgot my Battle Droid here last time," the boy had protested.

"Well, if you didn't miss it all this time, I think you can wait until Mom comes back and is able to find it for you. You don't go through Mom's work desk drawers without permission."

The kid had crossed his arms over his chest and flopped against the back of the chair in a way that looked about as angry and defiant as his mother. It almost made Rollins laugh again.

Amaro had glanced at the ongoings too. "She have him in a lot?" He'd asked.

Will looked at him and shrugged. "Sometimes. We're usually in and out pretty quick."

"I've got a five-year-old," Amaro offered to the other man.

Will had nodded. "Yeah, Liv mentioned."

Amaro looked sort of put-off by that – like he was somehow surprised and disgusted that the detective would be talking about the new people in the squad room.

"Don't know I'd bring her in here," Amaro had said, almost with a judgmental tone to his voice.

But Will had just shrugged. "Guess you've got dealing with the job and juggling your kid and family life better than us then."

Amaro had examined the other man again. "Kid in a squad room – not an awesome idea. Wasn't there a shooting here?"

Will had glared at him. "Security has been increased since then. Holding cell's been moved too. We like him to know his mom is safe at work – and he's safe and welcome here too. This used to be a family here."

Rollins glanced at Amaro before looking back at Will and the kid. It seemed like a harsh comment. But if even the spouse of one of the detectives was saying that to them as rookies, it made it that much clearer just how much of a shake-up the squad was going through in the wake of everything that had gone down.

"Maybe the squad's family – but this isn't a family place," Amaro had interjected, like he wanted to have some sort of argument with Benson's husband. Rollins sure didn't think that was a good idea. She kind of doubted that Benson would be with someone who was a pushover.

But Will had just snorted and shook his head at the detective. "Get back to me in a year – if you're still around. You haven't had your wife or kid in here at that point – then you can give me all the tips you want on keeping your family out of the squad room. Good luck," Will had nodded at him.

Amaro shook his head in confusion.

"Wife, kid, cop, special victims. Good luck with that. Hope it works out for you – and your family."

Rollins raised an eyebrow at the other detective at that comment. Though it seemed harsh there seemed to be some sort of sincerity under it, like the guy knew what he was talking about.

Rollins really wouldn't have minded having some more time to quiz the guy and try to glean some more information about the other detective – even though Will had been guarded and fairly short with his answers, likely coached by his wife to keep his mouth shut, she figured. Still, the comments back and forth with Amaro had now left her wondering how long the two had been together. She figured on the age of the kid, at least seven or eight years. For cops – that might as well have been an eternity. There wasn't the opportunity to interact with him anymore, though, Benson had come back into the room with the Captain following behind her – and everyone had dropped silent again.

"He put his ice on your file," was the first thing Will had said somewhat defensively to her as she got back to her desk and tapped on it for her.

She'd immediately flipped it open and then glared at him. "Good job at watching him, Will," she'd said and pulled a couple papers out to wave in the air in an effort to dry them. There were visible wet marks on them and she didn't seem happy about it.

"He says he left one of his action figures here too," Will told her.

"Not a figure – a Battle Droid," Noah had clarified loudly.

Benson pulled open her bottom drawer for him and pulled out a toy that she put on the desk in front of her kid. "That it?" She asked.

The boy hadn't responded either way, picking it up but then diving back into the drawer and pulling out a couple little cars and playing with them along the edge of the desk.

"Will," Cragen said, "I hear you're still collecting donations for your race this weekend?"

Rollins saw the Captain already had what looked like several Twenties in his hand – and the guy had nodded and accepted them.

"Yeah, for sure. I don't have the tax receipts with me – but I can send it in with Liv for you on Tuesday."

Cragen had nodded. "Don't worry too much about it. Where you looking at finishing this year?"

The guy had shrugged. "I've graduated to the old fogies category, so I'm hoping to break into the top 100 in my division."

"He's got his training runs down to about two-thirty-six," Benson had interjected for him.

"I'll need to keep it there and shave off a couple minutes, if I want to break into the top tier, though," the guy had said.

"Hot summer for training," Cragen had offered.

Will nodded. "Yeah. It's been rough going. Supposed to be cool on Sunday, though."

"You got your team shaped up, OK?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, we ended up with a pretty good group. Got some strong athletes and then just some really great fundraisers. So it will work out. We should have a strong top five for our finishing numbers and think we'll come out at about $500K with the donations. Not a bad year."

The Captain had patted Will on the shoulder. "Good luck with it," he said before disappearing back to his office.

"What you collecting money for?" Rollins had asked – and seen Benson cast her an almost warning glance.

Will had seemed hesitant to answer, looking at his wife almost for permission to talk, before meeting her eyes again.

"I'm one of the coaches for one of the triathlon's charity teams this weekend," he said. "I'll be competition in the race too. I'm collecting donations from anyone who is willing and able."

She looked him up and down again – the comment explained a lot about the guy's physique.

"You're a tri-athlete?" She asked now.

"Do I look more like a tri-athlete than I do a math professor?" He put back at her and she saw Benson look over in her direction again and she felt a bit embarrassed about their earlier exchange.

"I could see some runner in you," she admitted. "I run too."

Will had shrugged. "I'm more of a swimmer than a runner. Running is just a necessary torture."

Rollins grabbed her wallet from her desk drawer and looked around in it – she only had one twenty and some ones. It paled in comparison to what she'd seen the Cap hand the man, but she thought it was worth the effort. She handed it to Will and he nodded.

"Thanks, I'll send your receipt in with Liv too."

She just give him a bit of a smile. "What's the charity?"

"Ah," Will had glanced back at Benson again but she was chatting at her son and leaving the money collection up to the man. "The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society."

Rollins nodded. "Good one."

Will had given a small nod again. "Yeah. It's an important one to us," he said and glanced back at his wife and kid again. "They do good work – a lot of research coming out of there. Lots of support for families."

Rollins examined him carefully and how he was looking at the boy as he said it. She looked at the boy again and ran the bits of conversation she had heard, the scrawny kid's arm – and it fell into place. She glanced at Amaro, who was eyeing her like she'd stuck her foot in it badly. She kind of wanted to kick all of their asses for not mentioning this about the kid. It sure added a whole new dimension to Benson's snarky factor.

She looked back at Will, not sure what she was supposed to say – but he wasn't even watching her anymore at that point. Benson had stood back up, her purse over one shoulder and was getting the kid's hoodie back over his head while Will was pulling the tight-fitting material down his arms. They were clearly trying to get the hell out of there.

"Hey, if you want some one else in your cheering section, I could come out," she offered. "I'm not doing anything – still trying to meet people in the city. I could give you a bit more of a donation then."

Will had looked at Benson like he wasn't sure what to say. She'd shrugged and made an audible sigh, that kind of left Rollins with the impression that she wasn't that welcome, which she kind of figured anyways. Benson had been making clear since she got there that she wasn't that excited about either her or Amaro's presence on the squad.

"Whatever," the detective had said to her. "Come out, if you want. We'll be over with the First Responders contingent in the finishing area. Guess there will be lots of opportunity for you to meet people that way."

"She'll be surrounded by burly firefighters," Will had said, "my brothers."

"Any of them single?" She had meant half-jokingly. But she figured if any of them looked half-ways like Will and had a similar personality, she couldn't do a whole lot worse. Benson though hadn't seemed to take it as a joke and had given her another deadly look.

"Ah, no," Will had said, clearly not seeing the funny either. "They're both married. Sorry."

"Well, you don't need to apologize about it," she said, trying to smooth it over.

Neither Will or Benson had responded – though the detective had nudged her boy. "Com'on, let's get going, sweets."

"Nice to meet you," Will had nodded to them both and followed after his wife and son.

"Text me or whatever if you do come out and can't find us," Benson had called over her shoulder as they disappeared out the door.

She looked at Amaro and he shook his head at her.

"You could've mentioned her kid's sick," she told him.

"You have two eyes, detective," he responded.

"Lots of kids are small," she interjected.

"And pale, and have sunken eyes and no hair and giant bruises on their arms?"

"He had a ball cap on, I couldn't see his head," she protested.

Amaro nodded with a clear sarcasm to it.

"Is he OK?" She asked him.

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Geez, that's crappy for her," she shook her head.

"I don't get the impression she wants sympathy or that we're even supposed to know – so you might want to keep your sentimentally in check there too," he suggested.

She cringed. "No one around here talks about much of anything, do they?"

"You all share your life stories in Atlanta?"

She shrugged. "Someone's kid having cancer would've at least been mentioned."

Amaro looked at her. "You aren't seriously going to go out to his race?"

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't seem like a great idea."

"He seemed nice."

"Maybe – but he's running the race. You'd be hanging out with Benson and the kid."

"And likely hundreds of other people," Rollins said. "Maybe she'd be easier to get to know outside the squad room. Besides, I'm not from here like you. This is a hard place to meet people in. Maybe a bunch of First Responders in one spot will make it easier."

Amaro examined her. "You have fun with that. I think you better hope your phone rings and you get called in."

"So having to go and work some sex case on the Sunday of a long weekend is more appealing than spending a couple hours with Benson and her kid at an event for a good cause?"

Amaro looked at her again, "Yes," he confirmed forcibly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

Will broke away from their kiss, pulling away from her a bit.

"We should stop," he told her quietly.

"Mmm," she just mumbled and leaned back into him on the couch. "I gave him dramamine with his pills tonight. Don't worry. He's out."

She moved her mouth to his ear and slipped her hand down the waist of his briefs. He'd already undone his pants a bit himself to give himself some more room and comfort as their touching had gotten more intense. But the addition of her hand down there wasn't helping at all – not to mention what she was doing just shy of his earlobe.

"Fuck," he moaned quietly, as her fingers brushed against him and then her whole hand wrapped around him. He pushed himself back into the cushions on the couch, and literally had to force himself to remove her hand, pulling it out of his pants and settling it on his chest instead.

"Com'on, Liv," he said. "You know don't like to the few days before the race."

He heard her audibly sigh and dropped her forehead to his shoulder for a moment before she sat up beside him, breaking the contact and then pulling her legs up and under her on the cushion and gazing at him.

"You know you're going to be too sore and tired for days after the race too," she told him seriously.

He gave her a smile. "Never."

She rolled her eyes. "I've heard that before."

"You want me to …" he motioned towards her and kind of gave her a combination of a shy and sly smile in one in his offer to get her off.

She snorted. "No. I don't, Mr. Romance."

"You can still have some fun," he offered again, putting his hand on her one thigh and running it upward.

But she just gave him a small but annoyed smile and tossed his hand back into his own lap. Instead she put her one elbow up on the edge of the couch and rested her chin on it, looking at him. She reached out and ran her hand through his hair some more, now in a more motherly way than she had been minutes before when her hands had come up to his head in their kissing.

"You didn't say what color your wave is this year," she commented, examining him.

He gave her a smile. "Green."

She smiled again and shook her head. "OK. That will never come out. We'll be shaving it after."

He made a 'yes' fist-pump motion with his hand. "Goodbye Summer Curls."

"Mmm," she sighed again and ran her hand through the mess on his head some more. "I love your summer curls."

Will just gave her a smile and leaned his head against her hand more as her fingers threaded through his hair and nails lightly grazed against his scalp.

"You going to let me put any in Noah's hair this year?"

"Mmm," she thought about it. "We'll have to take a look at his blisters. Green will really stain his scalp. We might have to get some dabbers – or just do face paint this year."

He nodded and watched her some more. She seemed a little spacey – and he didn't think it was just sexual frustration.

"You OK there, babe?" He asked gently. She'd seemed OK at dinner – but she'd been a little short with him and Noah. That was kind of the norm anymore, though. He'd definitely noticed that she didn't seem quite as balanced when she came home from work anymore with Stabler out of the picture.

She met his eyes again and gave a little nod. "Yeah. It was just a long week at work. I'm tired."

"Long weekend," he offered, and reached out to rub her arm. "You're not on-call. You can rest up."

"Mmm," she sighed and leaned into where his hand had come up to cup her cheek. She gave him a little smile. "Except for your race – and McTeague family insanity."

He put his own elbow on the back of the couch and rested his head on it too, looking at her some more. "You know I don't care if you aren't at the swimming pull-out or the Park gates. I just like having you at the finish line."

She nodded her acknowledgement, but said, "I like seeing you get out of the water."

"I'm sexy in my wetsuit, right?"

She snorted. "No I just like the waddle-run and watching you flail around to get out of the thing and onto your bike."

He smiled at her. "You aren't very nice."

She leaned forward and put her forehead against his. "You knew that when you married me."

He nodded, bobbing both of their heads. "You're right. What the hell was I thinking?"

"Desperate."

He smiled. "Completely." He leaned in and gave her another kiss on the lips. She accepted it briefly but quickly broke away.

"Mmm, don't start," she mumbled and moved her forehead back up and against his. "I won't let you stop this time, if you get us going again."

He sighed and let a comfortable silence hang between them in their shared space for several moments.

"So did you call Elliot?" he finally asked quietly.

She made a frustrated sound and pulled her forehead away from his and knocked it a couple times on the back of the sofa before putting her chin back on the heel of her hand and shaking her head at him.

"Why are we always talking about Elliot Stabler while you've got an erection anymore?" She raised her eyebrows at him.

"You know I have the hots for Stabler," he teased and she whacked the back of her hand against his chest.

He gave her another smile – and glanced down at himself and shot her a lot. "Talking about him sure seems to be working at fixing my problem. Hard-on killer."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, mood killer is right. You – and your topics of conversation. Not him."

He just gave her another smile and reached out again to squeeze her shoulder and rubbed his thumb gently down her bicep.

"He knows him and the fam are still welcome at the barbeque?" Will asked gently.

She nodded but looked sad. "He knows. I left a message. Sent an email. He's not going to show Will."

Will shrugged and gave her a weak smile. "He might. They've come two years in a row now. He seems to like it."

She shook her head. "He doesn't want to see me even. He's not going to want to be at an event full of cops and First Responders whispering his business. Everyone is still talking about what happened. It's going to be what he's remembered for. It's not fair to him – and he's not ready to deal with that yet. He doesn't want to put a face to it. It's probably best he doesn't come anyways. He'd likely get fed-up with someone. There'd be a scene."

Will sighed and looked down. He wished he could fix the whole Elliot thing for Liv. The situation at her job sucked. He knew he couldn't do much about that and that that was the other man's choice. He really couldn't fault him on that. He knew that after the guy had done the job as long as Stabler had – his wife was likely sick of it.

Beyond the emotional damage of the shooting – Stabler and his wife were likely just trying to salvage their family life before they ripped apart at the seams. Will could understand that. Every time Liv came home after having seen something else that was awful, every time she had that ghostly and distracted look in her eyes, every time he could tell that something had truly shaken and saddened her but that she wouldn't or couldn't speak about it to him – he just wanted to scream at her to get the hell out of there, stop it, move on, before it broke her, before it broke their family. But it didn't really seem like that was a choice or a luxury their family had anymore. He wasn't sure when ,and if, it ever would be. It made him sad on a whole other level – and it made him worry about her more.

But even with Stabler leaving the job – that didn't mean he and Liv had to stop being friends. He didn't get how you could work with someone that intimately and just completely cut them out of your life. They'd been there for each other's kids being born. Liv had been there for his grown kids. Elliot had been there for her with Noah. The man had fucking stood up with them at their wedding not even a year ago. It couldn't just be called a working relationship. They weren't just office spouses – as much as Will hated to admit that. It just seemed so harsh to cut each other out of their respective lives.

Sure, Stabler was a guy and processed emotions and relationships differently. Will could appreciate that too. And, it wasn't just that - Stabler was clearly a guy's guy. But he saw how the man looked at Liv. He saw how he hugged her and how he would touch her shoulder or back sometimes. As much as it had made Will uncomfortable for a long time, he also felt extremely guilty to feel any sort of joy that that relationship had been torn from his Olivia. She needed people in her life. Elliot Stabler was family for her. You don't just chop off family. You can't. It doesn't work that way.

He hoped that Kathy didn't have something to do with the decision for the lack of communication. He hoped that Stabler was just being a prick, really. Because it made it him even sadder and more angry if the guy's wife was the one dictating this. He'd had to navigate an entire relationship with Stabler in the picture. Kathy could at least suck it up and be understanding when she'd already had years to establish herself and their family with the guy. Will hadn't had that luxury and he'd done OK with Liv.

His wife had made it clear repeatedly and multiple times that her and Elliot were just friends – work partners, that anything more wouldn't ever happen. She'd also made it clear that if Will wasn't able to come to terms with that – then he wasn't going to get to have a place in her life. So he'd come to terms with it and Liv had never made him feel like a third-wheel in terms of where her heart was. Elliot Stabler may have pieces of her heart and collective memory and identity – but Will knew he held others, if not bigger and more important ones – just different ones.

He hated to think that Kathy hadn't come to terms with what Liv and Stabler had. Or worse that she didn't trust Liv. Olivia would never do something that would damage Stabler's marriage – let alone she wouldn't do something that would damage her own. Family was everything to Liv. She'd wanted one for so long and Will knew how much she loved having one – how she made that known to her son and to him every single fucking day. She was an amazing mom. She was a great life partner. He loved having her as a wife. He despised even thinking that Kathy would suspect there was any sort of impropriety or suggestion of it that would prevent Liv and Elliot from still having a friendship outside of their work.

Part of him wanted to call Stabler himself – to march himself over to Queens and just say, 'What the fuck?' to the guy or even to his wife. He'd thought about it multiple times. He'd even sat looking at his contacts on his phone and thought about hitting the call button – especially on the nights that Liv just looked so distracted and sad by it all, when she had that cloud hanging over her. Or when she'd sit there staring off in space and clearly not having heard a thing he'd been saying until he startled her back to reality and she'd apologize and look embarrassed. He knew she was thinking about it. He didn't know if she was running the shooting over in her head or if she was thinking just about Stabler generally or about the loss of her friend or about something that had gone down between them over the 12 years they'd worked together. But he could tell she'd been thinking about it.

"Well, I hope he does decide to show. The family would like him there too. They're family now."

She gave him a kind smile and reached out tracing her index finger along the scars around his eye. She leaned forward and gave him another closed-mouth kiss. He kissed her back and they both lingered in the several short joinings and releases. Her lips felt so soft. They always did. She brought her arms back up around his neck again and settled her forehead against his again – their shared thought position. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rubbed her lower back with one hand, as his other hand just slipped into the waist of her pants as they pulled away slightly from her body with how she was leaning forward and into him.

"I love you," she told him softly.

He smiled, even though they were both looking down and he knew she probably couldn't see of feel it. "I know. I love you too, babe."

They sat like that for several moments before she straighten away from him and settled back into the couch again. He snaked his hands away from her back and lightly caressed her belly before wrapping his arms across his chest and watching her again. She just gave him a small smile. She still had her summer coloring – her olive skin even darker than usual in a way that he thought nearly made her glow and made her look even more healthy and beautiful. But the sadness in her was really creasing her parts of face anymore. He could see it most at the corners of her eyes. Noah, Elliot, work. It was too much sadness and stress.

"You going to invite that … blond …"

"Rollins," she filled in for him.

"She got a first name?"

"Amanda."

"You going to invite Amanda to the barbeque if she shows at the finishing chute?"

Liv shrugged. "I don't know. Want me too?"

"Atlanta to New York – probably a bit of a change."

Liv shrugged again. "I don't know. Looked like that city had some grit in it too."

"Yeah, but New York is New York. It's a hard place, Liv."

She just shrugged.

"You forget because it's always been home to you," he told her.

She sighed.

"I found it pretty hard to come back here and make friends as an adult after being in Boston for so many years," he offered.

She rubbed her eyebrow. "Now I have to be the new kids' social co-ordinator too?"

He smiled and snorted at her. "It's not a social co-ordinator. It's inviting her to a barbeque. I'm pretty sure she can talk and mingle on her own after she gets there."

Liv sighed loudly. "OK. Sure. Whatever."

He knocked her knee with his hand. "You're so grouchy sometimes, Detective Benson."

She rolled her eyes at him.

"You could see they're scared of you," he commented.

"Good," she mouthed purposefully at him.

He shook his head at her.

"She might have a bit of idol worship going on. She seemed eager to be chatty," he told her.

"Yeah, I got that on the first day she was there. I'm no one's idol either."

"How about role model?"

She sighed again. "How about I just do my job and come home?"

"She seemed OK."

"You sound like you want to date her. Want me to be a match-maker too?"

He snorted. "I do have a thing for detectives."

"Mmm," Liv offered and rolled her eyes again.

"Just invite her to the barbeque," Will nodded at her.

"If she shows."

He gave her a smile. "She'll show."


	8. Chapter 8

**Title: Rollercoaster, Favourite Ride**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: Elliot has left SVU - and it hits Olivia hard. His departure has some implications for her work life and her personal life. She tries to figure out what it means for her own identity, her new marriage, and her work situation. In the midst of it all, she's also having to navigate new squad members at work and still deal with being the mother of a sick child. This story takes place just several months after the conclusion of Undeserved in my AU series of stories.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. My stories are not EO and never will be. You may want to read some of my other ones for context on the characters in this AU first - though, it's likely fairly self-explanatory on its own too.**

**WARNING: THIS STORY MIGHT KIND OF BE A SPOILER FOR READERS OF UNDESERVED.**

It'd taken her longer than she thought to find them. Rollins was surprised at how many people were loitering around the finishing chute of the triathlon. She'd run some charity races before but none of them ever attracted a crowd like this - but they also didn't have the kind of entertainment that was set up in the park for the spectators, racers and their cheerleading sections.

When she finally spotted the other detective, though, she didn't seem that interested in all the activity that was going on around her. Benson was sending off away from the immediate crowd and gazing down at her phone. Rollins couldn't spot her son or the supposed burly firefighters who were supposed to be surrounding her either.

"They got you working on your day off?" Rollins tried to offer is a casual tease as she finally reached the other woman.

Benson barely glanced at her. "There's no such thing as a day off with this job," she muttered.

"That the ME's report?" Rollins asked. "I was looking at it on my way over too. Warner wants us in on Tuesday."

The detective just shook her head. "Won't be in on Tuesday," she said. "Commitment with my son."

"Oh … yeah …" Rollins acknowledged. "We've got you covered." She meant it supportively but Benson shot her another look of daggers and Rollins found herself quickly looking away. "Where is the little man?" she asked instead, trying to change topics.

Benson seemed to pull herself away from the document she was still scanning on her phone with that question and looked off over her shoulder. Rollins followed her line of sight and see the little boy well-off in the sidelines playing catch with a man that definitely looked like a stereotypical firefighter. Or at least a middle-aged burly one – leaving the foregone conclusion that it was one of the detective's brother-in-laws. Rollins thought that Benson lucked out in the looks-department there. This brother clearly wasn't as attractive as the man she'd met in the precinct the other day. There was a muscular quality to him but also a stoutness and squareness in his features that were clearly creased with years that didn't seem as present in Benson's husband.

"He's just over there," she said a little more quietly but with a jut of the chin – clearly examining the child and checking in in an acknowledgement that she hadn't looked that direction in at least a few minutes.

She'd made the comment almost lower than conversation level but the little boy still must've sensed she was looking at him. After catching the ball in his mitt looked at his mother and smiled and started to trot over and buried himself against the woman's side examining her with inquisitive eyes.

"Be polite," Benson said. "Say hello to Detective Rollins."

Amanda actually thought her chastising the boy was a little funny considering she hadn't actually said hello to her yet. But Rollins also knew that Benson hadn't really wanted her to come out to the race. She'd decided to anyways. She really wanted to make some headway in establishing some sort of relationship with the other woman. And, if that wasn't possible, maybe she'd at least meet some other people on the job at the race. Though, she wasn't sure how hopeful that looked at the moment. People seemed mostly huddled in their own little groups and she wasn't too sure she could just randomly own someone else's cheering section should Benson decide to continue to ignore her.

"Hello," Noah said quietly.

"Hi there," Rollins smiled at him but the little boy continued to gaze at her like he had more to say.

He squinted a bit. "You stole Uncle Elliot's job," he stated bluntly.

"Hey," Olivia said and looked down at him. "She did not steal Uncle Elliot's job. Amanda was here before Uncle Elliot retired."

Noah looked up at his mother and then squinted back at her. "Mom says she works at a daycare now. Do you too?"

Rollins gaped a bit at the little boy at that, while Benson made some sort of sound but offered no comment to shut up the boy or to correct the statement. Somehow Rollins wasn't exactly surprised she might've vented something along those lines at home. She'd overheard some curt conversations between the detective and the captain that made it clear that Benson wasn't overly impressed with the new work environment – or her co-workers. But a daycare? That was a little harsh. It wasn't like Rollins was wholly inexperienced. Young maybe – but Benson would've been young when she started in SVU too. And new to New York – but there wasn't much she could do about that. She certainly wasn't new to sex crimes.

Still, she didn't think commenting on that comment was going to get any of them any further ahead so it was likely best to just change topics again. Though, Amanda wasn't really sure how much she liked knowing that her presence was that despised by the older detective.

"That's a snazzy tshirt you've got on there, buddy," she said instead, though, and gestured at the runner's shirt that was clearly the boy's father's. It was hanging almost down past his knees. And the bright yellow of the shirt was near clashing with the florescent green that seemed to be streaked with some sort of chalk or paint into the boy's fine hair and dabbed onto his prominent cheekbones.

Noah looked down at the shirt. "It's Daddy's," he said and then pointed at the big lettering at the bottom. "It says Livestrong."

"What else does it say, sweets?" the older detective asked and gestured at the rather lengthy phrase on the shirt, which proclaimed the determination presumably of cancer survivors and their drive to 'fight' and to 'win.' But the little boy just pulled the shirt away from him and examined it almost with confusion.

"Mom! It's upside down," he finally huffed. "I can't read upside down."

Amanda let out a small noise and a little smile at that. She thought she kind of liked the kid. He seemed funny. She just wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Or maybe it was more that she was still figuring out how to think of her colleague in the mind frame of being a mother.

"Where's Daddy?" the kid demanded and looked up at his mother again.

"Hmm," Benson said and tapped on the screen of her phone again before handing it down to her son. "He's almost here, sweets. Should be here soon."

The kid examined it and then near flopped his body against the metal barrier in front of them, looking through the bars – up the path – and then glazing down at the phone again, like he expected to see his father appear any second. Amanda glanced down the path too. She could see a small huddle of runners in the distant but she couldn't make any of them out. Not that she thought she'd be able to pick out Benson's husband in a crowd yet – at least not from that distance. But seeing as the other woman wasn't acting like that grouping contained her husband, she suspected he was still a ways out.

"He looking good to make his target time?" Rollins tried again with conversation.

Benson shook her head and leaned forward on the barrier herself, examining the pack now like it might actually contain Will.

"No. He took a long time in the water. I'm not sure what happened. That's usually his best leg. He's going to be disappointed."

"He make up any time on the bike or run?"

"Some," Benson allowed. "Not enough." But then she glanced over her shoulder. "Rob – I think he's coming in," she called behind her to the man who'd been playing catch with her son and now seemed to be chatting it up with some other men. Then she pointed a bit at the pack. "You see think you see Daddy, sweets?"

The little boy rocked against the barrier again and then looked at the phone. "It says he's 950 away, Mom."

Benson actually cracked a smile at that. "I think the GPS is a little off, Noah. I see Daddy. Com'on. Let's get ready to cheer."

She held out her hand and the little boy huddled over closer to her but still seemed more committed to watching the numbers creep down on the phone then looking at the pact of people closing in on the finishing chute. The other detective started clapping, though, and offering out encouragements of "Good job, guys", "Good effort", "Good race" as some of the pact started passing under the finishing banner and slowing to a trot or a walk up the remainder of the chute. Some of them where clearly glancing around trying to locate their own personal cheering section. Rollins didn't think Will would have to look too far. Benson had positioned her family only paces after the banner. She must've gotten there early to have claimed a spot in the area. Though, people seemed to be coming and going as their racers finished.

"There's Daddy!" the little boy finally cheered as the pack started to break up. He hopped up and down and waved his hand. "Dad! Dad! You run too fast for cancer! Dad!"

Rollins saw a man smile and look in their direction as he crossed under the banner. It took her a moment for her to even realize that it was the man she'd met on the Friday. To start his curly dirty blonde hair now was a mess of sweaty green that looked even worse with some trails of sweat that seemed to have picked up the coloring and beading on his forehead and down his cheeks. Beyond that she'd seen him in a baggy shirt and shorts in the squad room. She'd seen his muscular calves and that he was clearly a healthy height and weight – but in the tight-fitting triathlon clothing, nothing was left to the imagination. They might as well have been painted on. The man was clearly in peak physical condition – fit and muscular and nicely proportioned in all the right places.

"Dad! Dad!" Benson's son was still calling at him. "Dad! You did good!" he said as the man finally closed the gap and gave his wife a thin smile.

"Hey," he greeted to her and she just mouthed back at hey, as he let his eyes look down at the little boy. "I did good, huh?" he said and bent over the bars, shoving his hands under the boys armpits and then lifting him upward and flipping him around like he wasn't much more than a bag of potatoes. The kid didn't seem to mind at all, though, and giggled with the movement. As he settled the kid backward on his shoulder, he leaned in and snuck a kiss from his wife.

Rollins was almost surprised that Benson accepted it. Not just because she could smell the guy from where she was standing and the sweat was clearly pouring off him – but she didn't get the sense that Benson much liked anyone looking on her relationship. Or at least not her. She was almost more surprised that Benson was hardly batting an eye at the acrobatics that her husband was doing with the little boy, who was still in a fit of giggles and peaking at her upside-down and out from under one of his dad's arms. She felt herself inwardly cringing that all the movement was going to result in the kid getting dropped on his head but the other detective seemed fairly confident in her husband's child baton abilities.

"Good job, Willie," the man who'd joined them said and brushed his hands through the matted mess of curls – something else Rollins wouldn't have done – as his lips moved away from their brief lock with his wife.

He allowed another small smile. "Thanks Rob." But even Rollins could see him kind of looking beyond them – like he was searching for more people.

"Mom and Dad are pretty hung up on getting ready," the man allowed and Will just gave a small nod like he understood, though there seemed to be slightly disappointed.

"Tom?"

The other man just shook his head at that and Will let out a small sigh. But then glanced at Rollins.

"Thanks for coming," he allowed.

She gave him a small smile. "Congrats on the race," she said.

He just gave a nod and worked at hiking up the near spandex material of his top that she was sure had been a one-piece suit but that he some how managed to peel away from his body. He hiked it up and dipped his head rubbing his face against it in a vain effort to blot some of the sweat from his brow.

Amanda again felt herself staring at the man. His six-pack became more clearly defined than it already had been through the tight material and it was apparent that he carried near no fat across his belly. She could near count his ribs in just the glance she gave him – but it had turned into more when she realized tattoos were tracing across much of his chest.

She saw Benson glance at her and felt some embarrassment wash over her, as the other woman's hands came up and stilled her husband's bringing his shirt back into place and wiping at some of sweat herself.

"I didn't get the time I wanted, did I?" he muttered.

Benson gave her head a shake. "No. You lost a lot of time on your swim, Will. What happened?"

He made a sound and shook his head. "One of the guys on the team was nervous about getting in the water and started to panic a bit. I stayed with him. He needed to stop a lot. I thought they were going to have to pull him right out."

She gave his cheek a stroke at that. "He make it?"

Will nodded. "Yeah. Through the swim. I haven't seen him since then. He said he'd be OK."

"Good coach," she assured.

He gave a snort at that and then glanced behind him as another pack started to come in. "Guess I should get out of the way," he muttered. "Go check in and get checked out."

She gave a little nod and he again treated his son like some sort of free weight, flipping him around and resting him on his hip.

"What you say, bud? Should we make the final run?"

Noah nodded. "I've been waiting forever, Dad."

"Forever?" Will inquired and then gave his wife a wink. "I think he means about three hours."

Benson smiled. "Sounds like forever to me."

Will just raised his eyebrows and gave his head a little shake. "See you down there?" he asked.

She nodded. "We'll start heading that way."

He gave Rollins another glance and small smile and then returned to the middle of the chute and put his son down on the ground and started a bit of a sprint, as the little boy took off like he really had been storing his energy all morning for that one moment.

Benson turned to her at that point and gave her a small shrug. "So that's the race," she stated flatly.

Rollins got the impression that was supposed to be her cue to depart – but she'd been there all of 15 minutes. She thought it would be a bit more of an event then that. With all the ongoing off in the background – the stage, the tents, the speakers blaring music, the crowds of people and the whiffs and likely overly nutritious food – it looked like there was more to the event then watching her colleague's husband come across the finish line and then disappear.

So she gestured behind her instead. "Looks like they've got a lot on the go for the rest of the day," she offered.

Benson glanced behind her shoulder like she hadn't even noticed all the activity. "We aren't going," she said and then waved her hand a little absent-mindedly towards a path leading towards a park exit. "We've got a thing to go to – out on Staten Island."

Rollins sort of gaped at her at that. It would've been nice if anyone had mentioned that her showing up literally was just going to be a few minutes commitment. She supposed that was good – that she didn't have to dedicate her weekend afternoon to hanging out with Benson or watching a trithalon that she was really only half-ways interested in. But, at the same time, she'd sort of being hoping to get to use the event to meet some people – maybe get introduced around, smooth things over a bit with the other female detective. Instead, it looked like she was going to be left on her own – to navigate a crowd of people who didn't know her from Adam and likely didn't care much that she was there.

"Oh …" she allowed, trying not to sound too disappointed.

The other man looked at her at that point. "You coming?" he asked and then glanced at Benson. "This Stabler's replacement? A lot better looking than Stabler." He gave her a wink – but Rollins wasn't sure she much liked the comment and it didn't seem like Beson did either. She noticed the guy get given a bit of a dirty look to the man but he seemed to ignore it and just stuck out his hand. "Rob," he greeted. "Willie's brother."

She allowed him a small nod and took hold of his particularly crushing handshake. "Amanda … Rollins."

The man gave her a bit of a smile. "So – you invited her, right?" Rob pressed back to Benson and then looked back to her. "Want to come out to the barbecue?"

Amanda glanced at Benson again who just shrugged, much like she had when she'd ended up inviting herself out to the finish line. It was clearly another event that she wasn't too welcome at.

She moved her eyes back to Will's brother. "Ah, nah. Staten Island is a little far for a hamburger."

Rob snorted at that. "I'll drive you. I'm driving them," he said and jabbed a thumb Benson's way, who'd gone back to examining her phone that she'd managed to retrieve before her husband trotted off with their son. "You don't want to miss out on the first responder barbecue of the season."

Rollins considered that and then looked at him. "Is this the barbecue that I've been hearing some of the EMTs chatter about the last week or so?"

Rob's smile seemed to grow at that. "That'd be the one."

Rollin then really shook her head. "Ah, I don't think I should come then. It sounds like it's pretty invitation only. At some big shot's house?"

She heard Benson snort at that and glanced at her but then set her eyes back to Rob again, who's smile had just grown even wider.

"It's OK," he said. "I'm pretty sure she can invite who she wants. It's at my parent's house."

Benson looked up at that and shot Rob another unimpressed look. Rollins was processing that. She knew who's house it was at. She knew who Ted McTeague was. Not as much as some people in the city seemed to know – but she'd followed some of the 9/11 compensation package hearings just as much as most people in law enforcement and the first responder community. It was a name. But even with having been in the city for a few short months she'd realized there it was a bit more of a name. It was a name that just kept on coming up.

"Isn't it at Ted McTeague's house? The 9/11 commission union guy?"

Rob snorted at that. "We tend to call him dad."

Rollins finally looked at Benson. She was married to a McTeague? She hadn't heard that in any of the murmurings – much like she hadn't heard her child was sick, or that she was even married and had a son. She seemed to have mastered keeping her private life private from those she didn't want in the know. She knew that was no small feat in a community that tended to be a rumor mill.

Benson gazed at her. She clearly wasn't too happy with the development but just shrugged, "Come if you want," she offered without much conviction.


End file.
